Patriot Dawn: The Resistance Rises

by Velocity, Max

  There was desultory fire coming back towards the kill group, but nothing too effective.

  Caleb waited until he thought that most of the enemy was taking cover in the median. He had sited the claymores at an angle to sweep the area of cover where the verge met the roadway. He fired the claymores, the blast and shrapnel smashing into and flensing the remaining enemy.

  After assessing the situation for a moment more, Caleb grabbed his whistle and blew a long blast: ‘ceasefire, watch and shoot’.

  The shooting stopped, the order being passed verbally now down the line, and the kill group searched the roadway with their optics for any enemy movement. A few shots rang out here and there, enemy movement ended.

  Caleb got up on one knee and blew the whistle in a series of short blasts, followed by voice, “Fight Through, Fight Through!”

  As they had rehearsed, the kill group got up and skirmished forward down towards the killing area, moving as an extended line in buddy pairs under the control of the squad leader.

  The idea was to fight through, sweeping the killing area and ensuring there was no enemy left. The cut-off groups provided flank protection while this happened.

  The squad reached the road with Caleb in the center of the formation; they double-tapped any enemy bodies they saw. They all got the same treatment, whether they looked dead or were trying to crawl away wounded.

  Teams went into each vehicle, finishing off any bodies they saw. The bus was a charnel house. Once they had finished with the vehicles and the bodies that had taken cover behind them, they skirmished up to the edge of the road where they could observe the windrow of bodies that had attempted to take cover there.

  The kill group went static, a fusillade of fire rang out as they made sure the enemy was dead, and then Caleb gave the signal to withdraw. They skirmished back up to the top of the embankment.

  Once there, Caleb gave the order to withdraw. The cut-off groups peeled in back behind the kill group, checked in with him and then moved back to where Doc was waiting. Following them, the kill group peeled in to the center and moved back to the RV.

  They all grabbed their rucks, which had been laid out in order, and the squad leaders got accountability. All present, no injuries. Caleb gave the order to move and they set out at a rapid patrol pace in single file through the woods.

  As the ambush had been sprung, the convoy commander in the center Humvee had managed to hit the panic button on the ‘blue force tracker’ navigation system, which utilized a satellite transponder to send an automated alert with their location to the Regional Tactical Operations Center (RTOC), located at the DHS Fusion Center in Richmond, Virginia.

  Tyrone Woods was the Director of the Richmond Fusion Center. He was a political appointee, placed in charge of the region’s security by the Regime leadership. At the time when the alert came in, Director Woods was not in the RTOC, and after he received the call he hurried into work, driven by his security detail in a convoy of armored SUVs.

  Woods was a veteran activist, a political bruiser, who had grown up in the gutter political environment of Chicago. He was adept at vote rigging and intimidation and exhibited naked unbridled ambition. This all made him a valuable asset to the Regime. He was a rabid racist, Muslim and communist; he hated white Americans. He saw them as the very evil at the heart of everything that was wrong with America.

  In fact, at the heart of it he hated America and wanted to be part of its destruction, bringing in the new order.

  Woods was big on the injustices of slavery, and it was slavery that was at the root of his hatred. He railed against the injustices of slavery and the heritage of white western imperialism and colonialism. America was the new empire, subjugating the Islamic and third worlds.

  America was the ‘Great Satan’.

  He in fact had never been a slave, neither had his ancestors. In fact, his father had emigrated from Nigeria after his number had come up in the green card lottery. It was a little ironic, but Woods did not know that his father’s tribe in Nigeria had historically been responsible for capturing and selling into slavery many of the original people who had been shipped over to the American Colonies.

  Woods hated the white majority in America. He wanted to see them broken and enslaved. He hated what he saw as the gun owning, constitution hugging ways of white Americans; their pickup trucks and Patriotism. He had no truck with the achievements and traditions of America, he wanted to see it all wiped clean. Such was the motivation of this racist, communist, ‘progressive’ bully.

  By the time Director Woods arrived at the RTOC an unmanned drone was in the air, surveying the destruction of the ambush site. The burning vehicles and the bodies of the slain blue shirts were all too evident on the TV screens.

  Woods was incandescent.

  “Find who did this. Use the drones. Bring in the hunter-killer troops. I want them dead. Kill them all.”

  The patrol had accomplished their mission, after lying in position overnight to ambush the convoy, and they moved rapidly away before continuing to patrol out on their route through the fall forest, headed south to their pick up point.

  The previous afternoon, they had identified a suitable patrol base on the map so that they could rest up and administrate themselves before continuing the extraction.

  As they moved towards the area of the identified patrol base, the patrol was not following a trail, but instead they were ‘hand railing’ a small creek, keeping it a hundred meters to their right as they moved.

  The patrol leader, Caleb, signaled for a hasty ambush and they broke track, moving off left at ninety degrees to their trail and then peeling back into a line covering the route they had come. They had not seen any evidence of a Regime tracker, but they took precautions all the same.

  Once they had been in the hasty ambush for a few minutes, observing their back trail, Caleb took a small party away and found a suitable patrol base in the deep cover of the trees. A buddy pair returned to the ambush party and led them into the occupation of the base.

  Caleb had decided to occupy in a linear formation, with the two squads parallel to each other in two lines, Alpha to the south side and Bravo to the north, headquarters between the two squads. There were two sentry posts, one at each end of the line, each squad responsible for one of the posts.

  The patrol occupied the base in buddy pairs, with four pairs per squad. As part of the work phase of the occupation each pair dug a ‘shell scrape’, a shallow twelve inches deep rectangular hole large enough for two men to sleep in with their rucks. Each pair faced out of the patrol base with interlocking sectors of fire allocated by the patrol leader.

  A track plan was cleared behind the scrapes, with communications cord strung between the trees to allow for hand rail movement at night. A latrine was dug under the watchful eye of one of the sentry positions and each time it was used the fighter would pile a little dirt back in over his leavings, to cover it up and reduce smell.

  Once the work phase was complete, the patrol went into routine. They were on hard routine after the ambush and this close to the enemy and there was no cooking on open flame. Weapons were battle cleaned and food was eaten cold, unless heated using the flameless MRE heater packs. Socks were changed and feet powdered.

  Following evening stand-to, in the dark, ponchos were put up over the scrapes. Throughout the night the sentry rotation went on. There were always two sentries at night per sentry position. Each man was woken ten minutes before his duty and he would quietly and without use of light put all his gear away in his ruck, save taking down the poncho.

  All gear not in use was always stowed, in case of the need for rapid movement.

  In the night it started to rain but by morning the rain had stopped. It was fall, and it was cold out there in the woods with a hint of the coming winter. The rain didn’t help, and it continued to drip down out of the trees long after the rain itself had stopped.

  Prior to dawn, the sentries woke the patrol for stand to. In the cold pre-dawn t
he fighters crawled out of their bags and packed their gear away. They took down the ponchos and removed excessive warm clothing, donning their tactical vests arrayed with their ammunition pouches.

  It was cold, and some of them shivered uncontrollably as they adjusted to the temperature outside of their sleeping bags. The worst part was putting on their cold sweat-damp helmets with wet chinstraps. Before dawn the patrol was silent, laid in their scrapes covering their sectors.

  There was a light mist on the forest floor, with the rain dripping down out of the trees. Yes, they were cold wet and hungry, but that did not impact their morale. They would bitch and moan, but if they weren’t moaning, that was when you had to worry.

  They were hardened fighters, with a deep motivation unaffected by the temporary hardships of their situation. Their morale was born of self-discipline, coming from a hard place deep inside, unbreakable.

  The sky began to lighten but the dawn was delayed in the deep woods. The fighters shivered in their scrapes and waited for the end of stand-to.

  Bravo Squad was covering the sectors to the north, where they had come from the previous day. Loud in the silence came the snap of a twig and they tensed, staring into the lightening forest. Slowly the silhouettes of a squad sized skirmish line came into view, maybe fifty meters away, as they came on through the woods.

  The hunter-killer force did not know exactly where the Resistance fighters were, but they knew they were in these woods somewhere. As the enemy closed to twenty five meters the Bravo leader, Chavez, opened fire by shooting a silhouette in the chest, which was immediately followed by the rest of his squad opening fire.

  The gunfire was harsh in the silence of the dawn and several of the enemy skirmish line were immediately hit.

  The Regime troops were well drilled and immediately went to ground and started to return fire, the harsh orders of their squad leader competing with the screams of one of his men who had been badly wounded.

  The firing increased to a crescendo and fire control orders were ringing out on both sides. The enemy managed to bring a SAW into action on the left flank and high velocity rounds went cracking through the trees in both directions.

  Luckily for the patrol, they were in hard cover in their scrapes and most of the rounds were passing overhead; they were also able to take advantage of the shock effect their initial weight of fire had on the Regime skirmish line. Some of the enemy had been hit, most were well drilled veterans, but a few had frozen in cover and were not yet responding to callsfor rapid fire from the Regime squad leader.

  Caleb was assessing the situation. Alpha Squad was still covering the rear, to the south, in case of an enemy flanking attack. Having been ‘bumped’ by the enemy it was now paramount for the patrol to bug out and extract to the Emergency RV. Caleb was reading the battle and listening to the sounds of the firefight.

  The ground was generally flat but to the left, north west, of Bravo Squad was a small depression where the ground sloped away in the beginnings of a draw that ran down to the right flank of the Regime force. It was not a significant feature really, the very beginnings of a creek, but he could anticipate how the enemy platoon leader would see it.

  Caleb could hear the shouted orders from the remainder of the enemy platoon behind the point squad that was currently engaged. He gave orders for Alpha Squad to move up to the left of Bravo Squad.

  Bravo gave rapid fire and threw smoke while Alpha peeled out from their scrapes and back on to line covering the small draw.

  Normally the patrol would have bugged out with their rucks but the situation was too serious, so they just grabbed their daypacks. From now on, if they got out of this fix, it would be ‘travel light, freeze at night’.

  Alpha peeled in to the left of Bravo, getting on line, both squads facing north.

  Caleb had Doc Oliver observe to the south, just in case. However, he was soon confirmed as correct in his assessment; the Regime commander had identified the depression and rapidly moved a second squad up to the patrols left, to try and flank and roll up the patrol.

  As the enemy flanking squad moved through the trees, jogging in a squad wedge formation, they ran into a hail of fire from Alpha on the left side and rapidly took cover, returning sporadic fire from positions behind trees as they tried to regain their balance. .

  The situation was now the two squads of the patrol facing two Regime squads. The patrol had taken the initiative and inflicted casualties on the enemy. The Regime platoon leader was organizing his reserve squad and relaying the situation back to his company commander to the rear.

  The enemy was gaining momentum, the pressure was going to build, but they would be unable to bring down indirect fire while the two forces were so close.

  Caleb gave shouted orders for his two squads to prepare to break contact. The drill was for each squad to fire and move as fire teams, keeping both squads roughly on line as they moved south back away from the enemy. If they stayed in place, the enemy would roll them up from the flank.

  They threw smoke to the front, and on orders the whole patrol started a rapid weight of fire to knock the enemy back before beginning to bound back, fire and maneuvering south, away from the enemy.

  The patrol only had the ammunition they carried, so they slowed the rate of fire to deliberate whenever rapid fire was not called for; they aimed at positively identified enemy or fired steadily into cover where they knew the enemy to be.

  The Regime platoon leader had by now deployed one of his 240 gun teams up to his left flank and the gunner brought the 7.62mm machine-gun into action just after the patrol had completed its first couple of bounds back. The deep staccato beat of the gun rang out and the rounds cracked through the trees, tearing off chunks of wood and felling leaves and branches.

  Bravo was conducting fire and movement back and as one of the guys bounded, zigzagging in a short rush, he was hit in the rear ballistic plate and thrown off balance into a face plant, winded. He rolled over and got up, adrenaline pushing him to finish the bound.

  Another fighter was hit in the thigh as he ran; his leg kicked out from under him as the round smashed his femur and tore open his femoral artery. He went to the ground with bright red arterial blood pumping out of the wound. As his buddy was running back, he grabbed the downed fighters harness and dragged the wounded man with him on his rush back, the leg bouncing agonizingly on the ground, until he could get him into cover behind a tree.

  The fighter grabbed the wounded man’s CAT tourniquet and whipped it onto the leg over the BDU pants, right up in the groin ‘high and tight’. He cinched the windlass down mercilessly until the bleeding stopped. The rest of his team had paused to cover this and the fighter pulled the wounded man up onto his back in a Hawes carry, running back and continuing the move north, covered by the rest of the squad as they bounded back.

  Doc joined the wounded group and they moved south looking for a suitable rally point as the squads continued to skirmish back in teams. Caleb maintained a position between the two squads as they moved.

  They continued in this way for about three hundred meters. As they were about halfway they had heard the ‘whop whop whop’ of helicopters passing overhead, but they could not get a good view through the tree canopy. The Regime platoon was just starting to regain its balance and cautiously move forward by bounding over-watch.

  The patrol had temporarily broken contact and on reaching the medic and the wounded man Caleb called “Rally, Rally, Rally!”

  The squads got into an all-round defensive position and leaders checked on their fighters. The lightweight stretcher was broken out. Chavez organized Bravo Squad, who took charge of moving their casualty, four men at a time carrying the stretcher, the remainder providing security and ready to changeover as necessary.

  Caleb did a quick map check and they continued to move off south, with Alpha split into front and rear security teams to cover the casualty evacuation in the center.

  As they moved south they came to a fire break that had once
been used as a vehicle track. Rather than cross it or walk on it, they veered off to the south east and hand railed the feature, keeping it about seventy five meters to their right. The patrol was moving at a fast walk, the two teams of Alpha to the front and rear, with Bravo in the center carrying the stretcher with the wounded man.

  Olson’s team was on point, strung out in single file. Phillips, Gibbs and McCarthy formed the rest of the team, with Phillips walking point. Caleb moved a little behind Olson’s front team and they all moved in a single file through the trees.

  There was something nagging at Caleb. It suddenly hit him with a realization.

  The helicopters!

  They had passed over headed south, following the contact with the Regime platoon to the north. They sounded like the big Chinook CH-47s with the front and rear props. He had a pretty good idea that they were facing a Regime hunter-killer company, probably based off one of the old Ranger Companies from before this all started.

  Hand railing the feature, which was an obvious egress route from the patrol base, meant that the patrol walked into one of the flank protection/cut-off groups belonging to the airborne reaction force platoon’s hasty ambush.

  The Regime platoon had been landed by the helicopters in a clearing just off the trail to the south east in response to the sweep platoon making contact with the rebel patrol base. They were to act as a blocking force (or cut-off group) across the patrols expected line of exfiltration.

  They had expected the patrol to move along the track, and as such the main kill group was oriented in a line facing south west to cover the track. Their right hand cut-off group was a fire team sized component and they had also been concentrating on the track, where they expected the enemy to come from the north west.

  Caleb heard the shout of ‘Contact Front!” from the lead team just as a fusillade of firing went off at the head of the patrol. The lead team had the drop on the cut-off group and had walked pretty much on top of them, Phillips opening fire at a range of fifteen meters as he saw them. As Phillips fired on rapid the other three in his team stepped left and right to create an angle of fire, Olson as the second man now able to fire at the enemy past Phillips.